In the Free States

Coordination is hard . . .

About incoming president-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Harry Truman was quoted as follows: “He’ll sit here and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army.”

If Trump is president next year, his power will be subject to natural, inherent limits. My previous post on this subject focused on individual forms of resistance. Besides the blossoming of a culture of resistance, we will still have sovereign state governments run by Democrats with significant power. It would not be surprising to see the current Supreme Court moving against blue states that go against the MAGA grain, as random lunatics in the House of Representative have threatened, but that would take time. Federalism is hard-wired into the Constitution. Accordingly, progressive interest in state policy should be amplified. Defiant blue states led by ambitious governors can do a lot.

One of the insights of standard economics is that when masses of people want to do something, it’s hard for any central authority to stop them. Even if civil servants were replaced en masse by MAGA chuds, coordination is hard, and we know Trump, besides being lazy as all get-out, is no managerial genius. I studied economic planning as a grad student, and while I have many issues with standard econ, its tenet that coordination is hard is something I came to believe.

The difficulty of coordination is exacerbated by turmoil and division among Trump loyalists. There are many rivals for the plums available from the nation’s chief executive. An illuminating, surprising column from San Adler-Bell elaborates furious in-fighting inside MAGA-world. No small problem will be Trump’s personality itself. His concerns are exceedingly narrow, relative to the tasks of governing the nation, and he resents anybody else telling him what to do or trying to talk to him about important policy issues in which he has no personal interest. He would rather watch TV.

The Federal government doesn’t have enough cops to police the nation. It has enough border police to oppress a lot of people, and the FBI and ATF can bother many more, but it’s a big country. Support your local sheriff. He does need your votes. They can’t arrest a culture.

Most obvious and urgent is upholding reproductive rights. A national abortion ban is possible and would cramp state support for choice, but reproductive care happens in the capillaries of the nation’s circulatory system. No doubt anti-choice zealots will be tasked to inform on their neighbors, as we saw with the clumsy efforts in Texas, but blanket control will still be a hard job. Consider the success of law enforcement in preventing the trafficking and consumption of drugs, and imagine how capable it would be in blocking access to Mifepristone for legions of upstanding citizens not ordinarily associated with criminal activity. Nothing prevents state and local governments from telling their police to focus their efforts elsewhere.

Then there is Medicaid. ObamaCare enabled an expansion of Medicaid. Quite possibly, it will be repealed under a MAGA trifecta victory in the White House and Congress. But it is still a state-administered program with dials that can be turned to benefit program participants. Many Red States value the program. The advantage of this and every other state-based reform is that it is not hampered by the need to be implemented everywhere simultaneously.

One such dial is administration. In the good old days when America was great, administration of public assistance was pinched to make participation onerous. Things got as petty as putting offices on the upper floors of buildings with no elevator. Prospective beneficiaries were handed bus tickets to states with better benefits. Anything to shave enrollment. Such odious practices can be run in reverse. A few big cities do this to get more of their people into the Federally-funded Earned Income Tax Credit.

Unemployment insurance is another Federal benefit administered by state governments. Its benefits can be made more generous. In recent decades the reverse has transpired. This tape can also be run backwards.

In the 1930s, state governments pioneered policies later adopted by the national government, including public retirement and welfare programs. If Trump obliterates non-defense Federal programs, state governments will retain the option to regenerate them. They can also pick up regulatory functions abandoned by the promised destruction of the “administrative state.” Indeed, they will be compelled to do so.

Superior, high-performance public sectors in blue states should impress those unfortunates in MAGA states and increase pressure on the national government. Imagine the benighted citizens of Red States being hesitant to eat contaminated meat, to be victimized by lower air quality, to drink unhealthy water. They are already witnessing the destruction of their public schools and universities.

Speaking of schooling, remember “Free college”? This too is susceptible to state reform, by increasing funding to public universities to cram down tuition, and on top of that, living expenses. Don’t wait for Bernie.

Then there is Social Security. Of course, it is a Federal program, but a state can actually increase SS benefits. How? By reducing the rate at which they is taxed, which some states already do. With only a few exceptions, states without state income taxes are Red. Through their state income taxes, state governments can and do provide cash benefits in the form of so-called “refundable credits.”

State and local governments can also penalize Red States by changing with whom they do business. This would be impossible to police. After all, blue states comprise a disproportionate share of the nation’s economy. In fact, by welcoming more immigrants, states can elevate their economies.

Naturally, all this sort of thing costs money. As a MAGAfied national government shrinks the public revenue system, there will be room for states to pick up some of the slack. It still won’t be easy, but it will be worth looking into.